I'm always a bit annoyed by people who have clever domains like "im.cool" or something. Partly because I'm not smart enough to think of such domains and partly because it shows they put far too much thought into their domain than they should have :omg:k:
Melonking.net is a mixed bag, as a website url I think its a nice length and easy to remember. HOWEVER as an email url its way too long. I use nonit.me for email because I like having a shorter address for that (Although I still want to replace that someday). One time I tried to go crazy and make a super short domain I got mur.ie and made my email "d@mur.ie"... but that was just not very aesthetic and a bit too obscure so I scrapped it.
I think in truth people should just pick one that they are happy with, you don't need to overthink a domain, if it suits you and represents what you wanna represent well then it can be long or short. What matters is the site; a bad site with a great domain is still a bad site, but a good site with a bad domain is still a good site.
Whats your opinion on emoji domains or all number domains?
Now that the game is officially released, the press is curious to know: what did you find to be the most challenging part of development? And what was the most rewarding, or something interesting that you learned in the process of building the game?
Ok so, the game itself was not too hard to put together, getting the environmental effects took a bit of fiddling. The hard part was the personal side, fighting with myself. For example having to make the call to cut the MoMG world when I knew it was one of the most popular from the demo videos, that was really difficult and I procrastinated on it for a week. The existential crisis of spending hours on something and not knowing if anyone would like it when it was done, that was hard too, you start questioning if it will ever be done and if your just wasting your time. Being an indie developer, you are on your own, there's no one else on the project to lean on for support day to day, that was the most challenging part.
What I learned was, just be brutal, make decisions, make cuts, leave out features you love, don't waste time deliberating. That said, also be paced, take breaks and don't rush; keep it steady. Letting go and admitting a loss and a limit is often the best and only way to progress, that's easy to say and really hard to do.
After all that though, the feeling of being done and completing it is great, I feel like a real game designer now :omg:k:
I downloaded the game earlier today, and had such a wonderful time playing through each level. I think it landed perfectly with the fact that I needed something relaxing. I enjoyed being able to go slowly, explore, look at the subtleties of each level. My absolute favorite level is level 2. Those simple shapes and lightning with the soundtrack was such a breath of fresh air! What's incredible is that there's something to look at everywhere, and as time passes so does the scene slowly evolves. I'll definitely play again to relax. Thanks and congrats on the release, Melon!
Thank you! Im really glad you enjoyed it (and it ran well for you!)
If your looking for soups though, Iv been making this soup 2 times a week for the last few weeks. Although Iv made some edits. I sometimes replace the bacon with salami and I also leave the bacon in for the entire cook; and I don’t always add cream but do cook it in red wine. Also I don’t use all the fancy peppers as I don’t have access to them easily, just regular bell peppers. I bring it in a flask to my studio!
i gave the character models a bit of an update! i'm much happier with this change :-D
As always, fantastic looking! How long does a character take you to do start to finish? There's a lot of small detail going on here and texturing that must all take quite a while! Also where do their personalities and fashions come from?
Good question! Aoeu is pretty much right, content is king and you'll have much more fun if you have content to post about. When I started my content was collections and past projects that I had sitting around, that gave me a whole wealth of stuff to post without much effort. Then as time went on I started to make new content whitch is much more work.
As for art; remember art is magic, and fun is magic, your are conjuring things into reality, make sure your having fun doing it!
+++ ALSO reposing this from Discord, its a guide I wrote for people interested in upping their website game: +++
For HTML and CSS, W3 schools is the best learning site, but also snoop the source of sites, steal bits you like and re-work them. You’ll find a lot of rules about how you SHOULD do web design, be sure to break them at every opportunity but learn them first. Design is the most important bit, you can have crappy HTML and a cool design and it will still be cool. By design, I mean the layout, but also the mood and vibe.
Don’t worry about Javascript until you’re good at HTML and CSS, do a programming fundamentals tutorial from Youtube. Then pick a simple project like a name generator and try that, then do more complex things. Don’t overdo Javascript, if your site can’t work with JS turned off then you have overdone the JS! Use Stack-Overflow for help! Also this is a great book to read to get more advanced with JS https://cdn.tc-library.org/Rhizr/Files/daaz74mzphKfnHsen/files/JavaScript-%20The%20Good%20Parts.pdf AND this is also a good book to get better at programming in general https://lamngoctam.github.i:ha:assets/books/The%20Pragmatic%20Programmer.pdf
When you’re happy with all that, you can try doing 3D stuff, it helps if you know how to 3D model so learn the basics of Blender first, then use X3D, Three.js, Javascript and/or learn Unity (that means learning C#). You can ALSO add 2D web games without knowing how to program using something like Construct.
(If you wanna do web-services like the search engine Im working on.. do a computer science degree :omg:k: But really, learn Node.js, Linux terminal, Databases (SQL,Mongo), Java/C++ and common software design patterns.)
Don’t judge your site too harshly against other sites, remember some (like mine) were made slowly over many years by people with too much free time… And remember that the technologies are just tools, they will allow you to make what you want, but you have to find your creative inspiration yourself. The only advice I can give is never follow trends, find things that make you excited to be alive.
Hopefully that answers your questions and helps you on your way! You can always get help here or on other forums/discords
So I just wanted to make a note of some of the edits I made based on play testing feedback. Thankfully about 5 people played fully and returned their questions and I was able to incorporate their thoughts.
Player controls were redesigned and made tighter
Boost and slowdown controls were added
A new world was added: City of Gold
The game was given a goal and ending
The play sequence of worlds was redone
New audio was added
A scene select menu was added
A major lighting bug was found and fixed
A number of minor bugs were fixed
Most people seemed to enjoy the game (although I think most testers would not tell me if they hated it, and most people could run it, although Macs are an issue) So I think this is a good lesson on the value of testing and why its a good idea to do it and do it early! I think the game is at least 70% better thanks to the feedback.
today i officially put in my resignation at work. it was a toxic shitty work environment for the last 3 years, underpaid n overworked and totally a strain on my mental health, i was always on the edge of a breakdown and now i am FREEEEE (in a few weeks). i wanted to leave forever ago but finally had the courage 2 do it after being offered a potential big time freelance gig doing what i love (making art). the future is still uncertain but now i have the chance to do better things n work on my mental health. the burn out was REAAAALL.
phew. now the weekend starts for me
Aaahhh I was already overwhelmed by the amount of cool stuff you were making when you were working, I shudder to think what kind of things an unemployed cinni will create! :omg:k: I better get my act together or Ill start looking like a slacker!
Bit of a update for me. Over the last few weeks I been having weird feelings in my head. And a ringing in my ear. The ringing seems to be slowly subsiding today; its much lower then before and today it seems to be lowering further and further. I think I may have some sort of sinus infection. Trying to get a doc's appointment going but with the pandemic its gonna be a while. I just hope that ringing fully goes away, I know for a fact I wasn't listening to anything loud in last few weeks .
Ringing in the ears is one of my great fears in life, I hope you get better!
Today was a major struggle, I was working on my site and just nothing clicked, no design felt right, man sometimes it’s so easy and sometimes it’s SO HARD
One thing I noticed the other day, its not exactly a bug, but if you try and open the updater while your not logged in it just comes up with a blank page that says "Unauthorized", it would be more helpful if it gave you a login box/link!
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